UPDATE 1-Norway PM appoints outspoken right winger Listhaug as oil minister

Norway's prime minister appointed Sylvi Listhaug, an outspoken right-wing lawmaker who once described wind farms as "white monsters", as its oil and energy minister on Wednesday in an unexpected reshuffle of the post.

Listhaug, a deputy leader of the right-wing Progress Party is currently minister for the elderly and public health and will be replaced in that job by the Progress Party's other deputy leader Terje Soeviknes. Prime Minister Erna Solberg, leader of the Conservative Party and head of a four-party majority coalition, announcing the reshuffle said coalition partner the Progress Party wanted to have its two deputy leaders in the cabinet.

Listhaug replaces Kjell-Boerge Freiberg, who is leaving the cabinet. The oil ministry is, among other things, in charge of managing the government's majority stake in oil firm Equinor.

In 2018 Listhaug resigned as justice minister after posting comments online accusing the opposition Labour Party - which was the target of the country's worst peacetime massacre in 2011 when Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people - of putting terrorists' rights before national security by opposing parts of a bill that she was presenting. Popular among supporters of her party, however, Listhaug made a comeback in the cabinet earlier this year and is seen as a potential future leader of the Progress Party.

Soeviknes, who was oil and energy minister between 2016 and 2018, left the cabinet in 2018 as he said he wanted to spend more time with his family.